Sheet Metal Bending tools

Aluminium is tough to bend. 0.25" ist quite thick and I doubt that any $200 tool will survive bending it.

I am bending 1mm aluminium (1/25th inch) on one of those cheapo $200 breaks similar but more simple than this one:

and it works fine. I would guess that 2mm, maybe 3mm is about the max it will do without falling apart. Make sure that you have stops if you need prcise bends (this one does not) and that you have various die sizes for complex bends (this one does).

Matthias

Harbor Freight also has a 24" brake, which we used on Team Overbot.

If you don't need the big size, that's a nice little one.

Incidentally, you can't put a right angle bend in 0.25" sheet for most common aluminum alloys. They'll crack. Steel, yes; cold aluminum, no.

This bender, for narrow stock up to 2" x 0.25", will bend mild steel with no problems. It's kind of a pain to set up, and must be anchored to a solid, heavy bench, but one of those was used to make most of our steel brackets. It does both right-angle and roll bends.

The cheap combo bender/shear/roll things aren't very good, and lack adequate guarding.

John Nagle

Thanks guys, This is the kind of info I was looking for.

The 40'' CAPACITY SHEAR, PRESS BRAKE & SLIP ROLL at

and this one look interesting.

I dont want to go this cheap, but for $99...

-howy